A Smartian Christmas Carol
by Alexis Rockford
Summary: Chief stars as Ebenezer Scrooge in a retelling of the classic holiday tale. Also featuring Maxwell and 99 Smart in supporting roles. r/r UPDATED 11/27 Chapter 2. Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers!
1. Merry Christmas, Uncle! God Save You! sa...

A Smartian Christmas Carol  
by Alexis Rockford 5.39  
A/N: I have stolen lines from  
almost every version of ACC ever  
made. I hope you won't have  
trouble telling the difference  
between the story and what's  
really going on in Chief's office.  
  
It was the night before Christmas at CONTROL. Agent 86, Maxwell Smart was waiting  
patiently in Chief's office for his Christmas bonus with his wife, 99.  
  
"Max, we can't stick around here much longer," stated 99 as she balanced a baby on each hip.  
"The twins are hungry!"  
  
"Give 'em an apple," suggested Maxwell, reaching into the holiday fruit basket on Chief's desk.  
  
"Max, you know they just got their teeth! Apples are too hard for them!"  
  
"Oh, well I'm hungry anyway." He bit into the apple and crunched loudly.  
  
99 was about to protest, when Chief entered the room, looking tired and cross. "Merry  
Christmas, Chief!" called the female agent to her boss.  
  
"I don't feel very merry," groaned Chief. "I -uh- just got word from the President that our funds  
have been cut again. That means no Christmas bonus for me this year. Here are yours." He  
handed two brightly decorated envelopes to his top female agent.  
  
"Oh, that's too bad, Chief," 99 said consolingly. She stood there in silence before her boss for a  
few seconds while Max checked their envelopes to see the amount on the check therein. She  
wondered why this news had disheartened him so. It wasn't like him to be so mercenary. But no  
matter what the trouble was, Chief was definitely not in the Christmas Spirit. She must think of  
something to help him feel better. Suddenly, a light dawned on her. "I know what will cheer you  
up!" she piped up. "Max wrote a Christmas story last night. Why don't you read it to him?" She  
glanced slyly at her husband.  
  
"99, this is not the time or the place," tittered Smart, obviously embarrassed. "Besides," he added  
in a whisper, "do you want me to get fired right before the Holidays?"  
  
"Nonsense, darling, I think that Chief would get a kick out of it."  
  
"Yeah, a kick in the seat of MY pants, resulting in me getting KICKED out of the agency."  
  
"Please?" she pleaded, flashing her blue eyes coaxingly.  
  
"Well, alright, if Chief wants to hear it and promises not to fire me."  
  
"I'll listen," said Thaddeus, "but I won't guarantee the other part."  
  
Max laughed nervously and produced a document from his large inner coat-pocket. 99 sat down  
in a nearby chair with the twins to listen. She reached down into the bag her husband was carrying  
and drew out two bottles to feed them. It wasn't that much sustenance, but it would tide them  
over until they were home. Maxwell cleared his throat and began:  
  
"Hymie was broken to begin with, as broken as a robot could be. He had been dismantled  
exactly one year ago. He had been given a good Christian burial and was already decaying in his  
grave. You must remember this, or nothing that happens later will seem wondrous. . ."  
  
***************  
  
"Wait a minute, Max," interrupted the Chief. "Haven't I heard this story somewhere  
before?"  
  
"Not MY version!" insisted Agent 86 before continuing:  
  
"He had been destroyed by a man named Thaddeus who hated everybody and everything ever  
since his wife died."  
  
****************  
  
"Max, I never destroyed Hymie, my wife is still living, and I do NOT hate everybody and  
everything!" Thaddeus protested.  
  
"It's just a story, Chief," interjected 99 quietly.  
  
"Oh, very well, continue," prompted Chief.  
  
"He worked in a dismal building with more doors and secret panels than employees. The  
reason that the structure was so secure could be due to the fact that it was a national intelligence  
center. Or maybe the architect was just an eccentric. Whatever the case, it took about ten minutes  
from the front entrance to anywhere of importance, which caused Thaddeus's minions to be late  
for work on many occasions and gave their boss many migraines.  
  
"It was the Eve of Christmas in 1970 the day the frightful thing happened. Thaddeus, or Chief, as  
he was known to the slaves who worked for him, had been verbally abusive to his head security  
man that day and threatened to sue him for every penny he was worth if he didn't stop bungling  
all of his assignments.  
  
"'But sir,'" began the man, whose name was Maxwell Smart. 'It's Christmas and I want to spend  
time with my family.'  
"'It's a poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every December the twenty-fifth,'  
grumbled Thaddeus. 'But as I'm the only one who knows it, you may have the day off.'"  
  
**************  
  
"Now I know where I've heard this before!" exclaimed Chief. All at once, he seemed to realize  
where this story would lead. "Max, don't tell me that you made me Mr. Scrooge!"  
  
"He made you Mr. Scrooge," affirmed 99.  
  
"He asked you not to tell him that!" scolded Agent Smart.  
  
Thaddeus rolled his eyes. "How did you expect this story to cheer me up, 99?" He glared at Mrs.  
Smart quite coldly.  
  
"Well, I thought you would find it humorous. After all, the thought of a dear, sweet man like you  
being anything like Ebenezer Scrooge is quite ridiculous, wouldn't you say?" 99 laughed gaily as  
though her joke was the funniest she had ever heard.  
  
"Well, actually, I didn't mean it as a-" started her husband. 99 kicked him as sharply as she could  
in the shins without disturbing the twins. Max doubled over in pain. "Did you have to do that,  
99?" he moaned, clutching his leg.  
  
"If you're going to read this story, please hurry up. I DO have places to be on Christmas Eve."  
  
"Alright, Chief, if you insist:  
  
  
"Max gave a shout and was about to run from the office when Thaddeus shouted, 'But be here all  
the earlier the next morning!'  
  
"Yes, Mr. Scroo- I mean Chief!" called the grateful man as he dashed into the cruel December  
night.  
  
"Thaddeus rubbed his hands together for warmth and was about to quit the building himself when  
he heard the familiar cry of 'Uncle!'  
  
"Thaddeus scowled as Phoebe, his niece, entered the chamber. 'A Merry Christmas, Uncle!'  
  
"'Humbug!' barked the Chief.  
  
"'Christmas a humbug? Oh, Uncle you can't mean that. Christmas is a loving and charitable time  
and though it's never put a scrap of gold in my pocket, I believe it has done me good and will do  
me good, and I say God Bless it!'  
  
"'What right have you to be so happy,' grumbled Chief, 'you're poor enough.'  
  
"'What right have you to be dismal,' returned Phoebe, 'you're rich enough.'  
  
"'There is no such thing as rich enough only poor enough,' scoffed Thaddeus. 'What matter of  
business brings you here at this time of year anyway?'  
  
"'I came here only to invite you, Max, and 99 to Christmas dinner with me tomorrow,' said  
Phoebe politely. 'I would ask Hymie, but I know you disassembled him last Christmas. Besides, I  
love Max now.' She batted her eyelashes and gazed in the general direction of her uncle with  
childish romantic longing."   
  
**********  
  
"Max!" yelled the Chief of CONTROL. "You know very well that Phoebe got over you years  
ago!"  
  
"Yeah!" agreed 99 sulkily. "I don't recall THAT part of the story." She bounced the twins on her  
knee for emphasis.  
  
"Heh, heh, well . . . would you believe? . ."  
  
"No!" shouted his boss and wife simultaneously. This, of course, woke the twins and they began  
to wail.   
  
"Excuse me," 99 said, glaring at Agent Smart as she left the room with their babies.  
  
Max ignored the hubbub in the room and once again commenced his narrative:  
  
"'Phoebe, Max and 99 got married last year,'replied the Chief coldly. 'They now have  
twins.'  
  
"'Oh, Uncle!' cried Phoebe and burst into tears.  
  
"'Weeping, weeping: a waste of water'" quoth Thaddeus.   
  
"Phoebe merely shook her tears away and left her uncle with the following words, 'God save you,  
and a Merry Christmas anyway.' She slammed the door shut behind her.  
  
"'Bah! Humbug!'"  
  
TBC . . . 


	2. You Will Have Three Visits By Annoying A...

"Several minutes later, Thaddeus's limousine pulled up to his small cozy house."   
  
*************  
  
"Max, you know very well that I live in a flat, and I don't have a limousine!"  
  
"You don't?" asked Smart in genuine surprise, an adorable, innocent, puppylike expression on his  
face. He reached for a pen and scratched it out of his story.  
  
And I thought he was going to repeat that there was no truth to this story, thought Chief in  
annoyance.  
  
"Now where was I?" Max inquired, gazing at the manuscript in his hands. "Ah, yes, the  
limousine:  
  
"Thaddeus alighted and walked up the steps with a dignified air, thanking the fates that he was  
independent this holiday season, free from her . . .  
  
"Just then, the lion face on his knocker transmogrified horribly to reveal the countenance of the  
former cybernaut. 'Thaddeus!' the apparition of Hymie whispered hoarsely before vanishing.  
  
**************  
  
"Max, may I offer some constructive criticism?" asked the Chief.  
  
"Sure."  
  
"In order to make this story realistic," he started, "you would have Hymie call me 'Chief,' not  
'Thaddeus.' No one calls me that anyway."  
  
"Oh, very well," conceded Smart, scratching the new word in, "but saying 'Chief' loses some of  
the dramatic effect!"  
  
Thaddeus, rubbed his forehead wearily as Agent 86 continued:  
  
"'Chief!' the apparition of Hymie whispered hoarsely before vanishing.  
  
"To say that the Chief was not startled would be untrue. In fact, he was petrified. But he showed  
no outward sign of it and entered the house as always, being careful to shut the door behind him  
and bolt it tightly. He ascended the stairs cautiously without even bothering to turn on a light.  
Darkness is cheap, and Thaddeus liked it. He padded down the short hallway to his room and  
retired therein, fighting desperately to shake the memory of the apparition but to know avail. Even  
murmuring, 'Bah! Humbug!' didn't seem to ease his troubled nerves.  
  
"He was just about to settle down before the heater in his room when suddenly his door flew open  
and a voice said, 'Anyone call for a disassembled robot?'  
  
****************  
  
"Max!" protested Chief. "Hymie would never be that cheeky to me. He is a polite and  
respectable cybernaut."  
  
"Well that's what *I* would've said if I were him," retorted Agent Smart.  
  
"But you're not him," the Chief pointed out.  
  
"'He,'" corrected 99 as she reentered the room with the sleeping babies in tow.  
  
"He who?" asked Maxwell in confusion.  
  
"'That's what I would've said if I were he.' The proper pronoun is 'he.'"  
  
Max rolled his eyes. "99, you're ruining the story!"  
  
"But you weren't reading the story," his wife protested smugly.  
  
"Well, I am now!" he whispered tersely, so as not to wake the twins:  
  
"The Chief nearly jumped out of his skin as he turned to behold Hymie in the flesh, well  
not really. In the bolts, I guess. He looked just as the day he was destroyed, wearing a white  
hospital gown.   
  
**************  
  
"A what?!" exclaimed Chief disbelievingly. Max was about to open his mouth and say  
something stupid when his boss stopped him. "No, I know, I know, you're doing it for dramatic  
effect," he parroted sulkily.  
  
Max nodded his head superiorly and read:  
  
  
"'What do you want?' Thaddeus asked nervously.  
  
"Well, your flat is filthy for one thing,' Hymie complained. A feather-duster appeared out of thin  
air and he proceeded to use it on the dirty furniture in the room.  
  
"Not satisfied by that answer, Chief challenged rather lamely, 'Who are you?'  
  
"'In operation, I was CONTROL's cybernaut, Hymie, but you don't believe that, do you?'  
  
"'Of course I don't!' retorted Thaddeus matter-of-factly. 'You've been incinerated! Any fool  
knows that!'  
  
"'Well, would you believe . . ?'" Max read from the paper. Then, after getting several  
reprimanding glances from Chief, he shook his head and scratched it out."'What has that got to  
do with it?' demanded Hymie, causing the duster to vanish. 'What if I am dead? I'm still here,  
that doesn't change that.'  
  
"'I don't believe in ghosts,' said Chief weakly, nearly choking on the words.  
  
"'I am not a ghost,' said Hymie indignantly as he turned to leave. 'I was never alive to begin with,  
so why should it surprise you that I was put back together?'  
  
"'I melted you down into ore, that's why!'  
  
*****************  
  
"Max, you can't melt something, *into* ore! Ore is dug up out of the ground! It is an  
impure form of a given metal!"  
  
"Well, excuse me!" retorted Max as he put his pencil into action once more to correct his  
misdeed.  
  
  
"'I melted you down into molten metal, that's why!'  
  
"'Well, there is that,' admitted the robot, 'but if you don't believe me, I'll just leave.'   
  
Hymie hung his head and trudged toward the door.  
  
"He looked so hurt that Thaddeus had pity on him. 'Wait!' he called, 'I do believe you!'  
  
"Hymie turned back toward his former boss. "Really? Oh, thank you!" He gave the Chief the  
closest thing to a hug that a piece of machinery could and-"  
  
*************  
  
"I really don't think that Hymie would hug me," Chief interrupted once again, slightly  
more than dubiously. "After all, as yet, robots are incapable of human emotions.  
  
"Well, strange things happen to those who return from the Great Beyond," Max interjected  
smugly.  
  
"Oh, Max, I didn't know you believed in the After Life," said 99 in surprise.  
  
"Well, now you do," he returned jovially.   
  
"But even if there is an after life," protested their boss, leaning forward at his desk, "I highly  
doubt that any cybernauts will be there."  
  
"There you go, bringing Hymie's religion into it again!" said Max angrily. "Maybe robots will go  
to the *Robot* Great Beyond."  
  
Chief and 99 rolled their eyes for what seemed the umpteenth time that evening.  
  
"Hymie gave the Chief the closest thing to a hug that a piece of machinery could and then  
continued. 'Now hear me: my time is nearly gone. I came to tell you that you will be visited by  
Three Annoying Visions of Agents-" *Oh, goodie,* Chief thought in annoyance. "-to knock some  
sense into your thick skull and show you the true meaning of the Season!'  
  
"'I think I'd rather not,' said Thaddeus meekly, rubbing his temples to hold back the headache  
that was forming. He had enough trouble with the real Max without having a nightmare about  
him.  
  
"'Sorry about this, Chief!' shouted Hymie as he vanished.   
***********  
  
"MAX!"  
  
"Sorry about that, Chief," Max apologized as he erased his own catchphrase from the narrative.  
"Gee, if you're going to be so mean and critical about my story, maybe you don't want to hear  
the rest of it." He stuffed the manuscript into his jacket and motioned to his family. "Come on,  
99," he said coldly, "let's go."  
  
As the Smarts exited the building and stepped out onto the light dusting of snow, 99 said quietly,  
"I think you were a bit hard on Chief." She bundled her babies tighter in their blankets, trying to  
shield their tender, pink faces from the bitter winter wind. "I think something besides his bonus is  
really bothering him, and although you're trying to be helpful, you're only making it worse."  
  
"*I* was a bit hard on *Chief!*" scoffed her husband in disbelief. "What about him, ripping my  
story apart, the story that I worked very hard on!"  
  
"Max, you wrote it in one night," 99 gently reminded him as they reached his gold convertible.   
  
"Well, I was up ALL night, 99," he said in his own defense, "and I was only reading it to him out  
of the kindness of my heart, trying to make him feel more Christmas-y." He entered his car, the air  
of a martyr about him.  
  
"Max, you don't seem to know what the whole point of giving is at all," his wife scolded him as  
she secured the twins in her lap. "When you give a gift to someone, it is theirs. The giver should  
no longer be able to dictate what the recipient does with it. If that is the case, then it is not really a  
gift at all is it? A true present should have no strings attached."   
  
"I suppose," grumbled Agent Smart in assent, though he always hated to admit when he was  
wrong. But 99 wasn't the type to rub your mistakes in your face after you apologized for them.  
She just wasn't that kind of person. She was beautiful and lovely and kind, everything he'd always  
dreamed of without realizing it. He leaned over and kissed her, an inexplicable sense of happiness  
surrounding him. "Listen," he said softly, "What say I drop you and the children off at home so  
you can eat and then I'll come back and finish the story with Chief if he's still here?"  
  
"That's the man I love," 99 whispered as she kissed him back, being careful not to crush the  
twins.  
  
The ride home was very silent. 99 and Max were too busy taking in the wonder of the season.  
True, the occasional snowflake that drifted by the window was not the trite flurry of snow that  
always seemed to blanket the world on Christmas in movies, but it isn't snow that makes the  
season, anyway, is it? It is the feeling of peace on earth and goodwill towards men that causes  
holly to sprout in the hearts of both young and old at this time of year. Maxwell Smart dropped  
his wife and children off at his flat after giving them each a Christmas Eve kiss goodnight.   
  
"The mistletoe and I will be waiting," 99 murmured seductively as she closed the door to their  
apartment.  
  
Max held the door open long enough to reply, "Good, because there's plenty more where that  
came from." They made goo-goo eyes at each other for a long moment before Max headed back  
to CONTROL.   
  
TBC . . . 


End file.
